Grove Street Steps

Artist tip: Choose to paint crumbling Victorian, concrete stairs and don’t worry about perfect, even lines. 😉

Alamo Square Poppies

Even sheltering in place in San Francisco, we are allowed to go out, get some fresh air and exercise — as long as we practice social distancing.  Some days I just climb up to the top of Alamo Square.  I live close to the famous park.  In 2016 the park was closed for a year allowing for a much-needed overhaul.  Three years later, the replanted gardens have come into their own.  The flower beds have been explosions of color this Spring.   

The painting is the view looking west from Pierce and Hayes Street.  Not the popular postcard view, but one of my personal favorites.

Postage Stamp Collages

Another round of handmade postcards are being mailed today.   Here are just a few from the series.

Stay Home, Make Mail Art — Royal Mail Art!

From a series of very Royal Mail Art.  It will be mailed while on my safe-social-distancing-walk today. All from old postage stamps featuring Queen Elizabeth (plus a few old stamps of her father, uncle and grandfather).   

Stay Home, Make Art — An Artist Book

Thousands of thousands of old postage stamps.  They came from my childhood collection to ones peeled from envelopes to ones purchased or given to me for making collages.   Many have found their way into this new artist book created while I have been sheltering in place this past few months.   And yes, there are still some left, the remainder are being incorporated into mail art that will be sent out in the coming days.

Mail Art in the Time of Plague

I knew someone would be sending me a plague doctor postcard — I’ve been seeing that image in my head for months.  Of course, I am not the only one drawing masks on postage stamps.  I received a postcard from Gina Visione (1).  Peter Müller (2) reminds us to pray to Saint Corona. Gregg Biggs (3) latest offering from the Museum of Unclaimed Ephemera features two ladies who are all dressed up with nowhere to go.  And the latest piece from Kathy Barnett (4) just cracked me up — thank you!

The volume of mail art has unsurprisingly declined.  I have read that the movement of mail between some countries is barely happening if at all. 

 

I have avoided trips to check my post office box.  San Francisco has closed some streets to through traffic.  I now can walk all the way up Page Street to Clayton Street and easily get to my post office branch and practice social distancing. I can order stamps online or wait to buy them from the postal staff.  They are also wearing masks and are relatively safely behind new Plexiglas shields.  

The problem is the narrow passage to my post office box way in the back.  It’s a room where social distancing is impossible.  The few times I have gone up there, I have always had to ask someone to leave the post office so I can get to my box.  Some of us go in, key at the ready, open, mail in bag, shut and lock and get out the door.  But then there are the other post office boxholder types.  Every post office has them.  The post office is their reading and sorting room where they need to spend 20 minutes examining every piece of mail, including random junk mail, before they exit the building.  No pandemic will get them to change their habits.  I get glared at every time I ask one of them leave.  At this point, I do not apologize for offending them.  I imagine long hallways in their Victorian flats with piles and piles of old magazines and newspapers — because one day, maybe, they will need to disturb the silver fish and find that October 1983 issue of The Nation.

Stay Home, Make Art — Little Stamp Collages

I continue to use up my vast horde of old postage stamps.  I’ve spent the week cutting, gluing and making small little collages — each from two or more postage stamps.  Here are some examples.